The 2025 national Budget will focus on building resilience to deepen structural economic transformation and consolidate gains achieved under the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1), Treasury has said.
With the economy now expected to record a two percent growth this year, down because of the severe drought from the initial forecast of 3,5 percent, Treasury is expecting a rebound next year of six percent on account of agricultural sector recovery.
Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube, while delivering a lecture at the Zimbabwe National Defence College in Harare yesterday, said the Budget would seek to strengthen the economy so that it becomes resistant to most domestic and foreign shocks.
"We are focusing on resilience because we have been impacted by climate changes this year, so investing in sectors like irrigation, more in drought-resilient seeds and cropping, conservation agriculture in the form of Pfumvudza/Intwasa, and also focusing on insurance products for farmers: all those are key aspects of building resilience," he said.
While the Budget cuts across different sectors, agriculture investments remained key, hence, more focus would go towards supporting water infrastructure and also building resilience in terms of environmental protection for the country to benefit more from its natural resources.
Treasury would also invest in building currency resilience to anchor growth and stability, while also making sure exports grow, given the currency is backed by precious metals and foreign currency reserves.
Prof Ncube said while agriculture was the only sector recording negative growth this year, the rest of the economy was in positive growth.
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"The ICT sector, tourism, and accommodation are growing above 10 percent. But also, we expect agriculture to lead the recovery next year when we are expecting good rains. We expect the sector to grow at about 13 percent (in a positive direction), and none of the sectors will record a negative rate of growth. So next year, we expect the economy to grow at six percent more than full recovery," he said.
Prof Ncube said so far during the period of NDS1 (2021-2025), the economy had been growing at an average of 6,5 percent, hence, should be able to meet the average growth target of 5,5 percent quite easily.
"That is our target for us to reach middle-income status by the year 2030. Of course, we have five more years to go, and under NDS2 (2026-2030), but we are again determined that we will be able to meet that average rate of growth," he said.
Prof Ncube said Zimbabwe had done well in terms of managing its external balances, supported by growth in exports in sectors like mining and growth in remittances by the diaspora.
He said the two sectors had driven the country's current account position compared to other imports and other outflows.
"In the last six years, we have had a very positive current account surplus. Our estimate for this year was that the current account surplus was likely to shrink to about US$45 million, but our latest figures are showing a much better position because we have seen an increase in gold earnings, and we now could be as much as US$100 million in terms of the current account," Prof Ncube said.
